There has been a fair amount of debate about the effect of a website’s outbound links on its Pagerank and standings in the search results. To help guide you as you link to other websites for your pages, here is a summary of Google’s thoughts on outbound links.
Outbound links do affect the way that Google views your website and the effect can be positive or negative. Having relevant links to quality websites is looked upon as a positive because you are providing a benefit for your readers. Links to authority websites in your market can also be looked upon as a positive as this shows that your site can be respected and that you’ve done your homework.
The sites that you link to can just as easily have a negative effect on your site. Google notes that unmonitored (especially user-generated) links can reduce your website’s credibility. By this I mean that you might link to a respectable website, but if you don’t monitor your links, the other site could turn spammy without your knowledge. This is not a good sign to the search engines.
A very hot topic today is the issues with undisclosed paid and advertisement links. If you sell paid links on your website it is important that they look natural or include the rel=”nofollow” attribute. Google is beginning to crack down on websites that are not disclosing paid links. If you get caught selling paid links without including the nofollow, your site may be penalized either through Pagerank or banned from the index all together.
One thing that Google says you don’t need to worry about is the Pagerank of the websites you link to. It makes no difference if the page you link to has a lower Pagerank than your page, if the page is relevant to your site, it will certainly not affect you negatively.
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Nice one!
What about linkfarming? Is that the same as outbound links? only unatural?
I think the safest way to keep it straight with search engines is to avoid outbound links, or am I wrong?